Gustafson finishes in the money on Lake Okeechobee

It was a tournament to remember for Bryan Gustafson.
The local angler finished in the money for the first time with a 48th-place finish in the FLW EverStart Series Southeast Division season-opener Jan. 10-12 at Lake Okeechobee, Fla.

“For all of the stuff that I went through during the event, I was definitely happy with that finish,” enthused Gustafson, who pocketed $1,000 for his efforts.
“Obviously, you would like to finish higher as an angler but that is the way that things go sometimes,” he reasoned.
“I’m looking forward to going back there again some day as all of that thick grass fishing is getting to be comfortable for me now,” he added.
Having competed in all four events on the Southeast Division tour last year, finishing in 80th place in the final standings, Gustafson left for Florida on Dec. 29 and began pre-fishing for his second season of tournament fishing down south once the new year arrived.
“I kind of knew what to expect after fishing there last year,” Gustafson admitted.
“I just covered a lot more water this year as no matter how fast you are fishing, you are going to [get a bite] and be able to find an area out on Okeechobee to pick apart.
“A lot of the guys weren’t able to get those big bites,” he noted. “But fortunately, I was able to find a couple of areas where I was able to get a few decent bites.”
After fishing in beautiful weather during the lead-up to the tournament, Gustafson and the other 176 anglers who took part found themselves facing the polar opposite in conditions once it got underway.
“In both years that I have been down there, we had beautiful weather leading up to the tournament and then we’ve had horrible weather in the tournament itself,” Gustafson recalled.
“It was an hour-and-a-half boat ride each way through some big waves,” he remarked. “And those Florida bass don’t necessarily like the weather changes as much as the northern bass, as they are just used to the warmer weather down there.
“It was the same conditions for everyone, though, and you can see why the total weights were bad for everyone,” he added.
Gustafson found himself in 60th place after Day 1 with a five-fish weight of 11.01 pounds, though he did lose a pound-and-a-half of his actual weight in penalties due to having three dead fish in his live-well.
“On the way back, it was a really rough ride so that’s what led to the dead fish that I had,” he explained.
“I caught a ton of bass on the first day, but I just couldn’t get the big bites and I broke some rods and some line fishing through some of the gnarly stuff down there,” he noted.
“But that is kind of the way it does down there as you need to have things going your way if you want to be successful.”
Friday brought its own set of difficulties early on for Gustafson, who found himself without a working trolling motor going into the second day of competition.
“You can take that situation one of two ways—you can go out there and have fun or you can just pout about it all day,” he reasoned.
“I did what I can out there and I was able to catch some fish, including the biggest one that I ever caught in a competition.”
That 7.13-pound lunker helped Gustafson to a five-fish total weight of 12.12 pounds on Day 2, which gave him 23.13 pounds for the first two days.
“I couldn’t fish as fast as I wanted to as I didn’t have a trolling motor, so I just went to the areas that I had done the best at and I was able to catch that big fish on a big seven-inch swimbait,” he said.
“I probably hooked a couple of other giants on that thing, but I just couldn’t get those reeled in.”
The top 10 anglers competed on the final day of the tournament on the Saturday, with Ben Todd of Pierson, Fla. earning the $40,000 grand prize with a total weight of 59.03 pounds after prevailing in a tie-breaker over fellow “Sunshine State” angler Trevor Fitzgerald.
Now that he’s back in Fort Frances, Gustafson currently is gearing up to travel to Alabama in the middle of February, where he’ll be competing on Lake Guntersville from Feb. 28-March 2.
“I got to fish on that lake last year, and it reminds me a lot of the areas I like to fish on Lake of the Woods,” he noted.
“It’s sort of similar to what it’s like on Whitefish Bay and Snake Bay as it has some real clean water and lots of vegetation, so I’m looking forward to going back there.”
Gustafson also will compete on Lake Seminole in Georgia on April 4-6 and Wheeler Lake in Alabama on May 9-11 as part of the FLW EverStart Series Southeast Division.